Archive/File: imt/ tgmwc/judgment/j-defendants-ribbentrop
Last-Modified: 1997/09/04

                          Judgment
                           of the
               International Military Tribunal
                           For The
             Trial of German Major War Criminals

                           London
               His Majesty's Stationery Office
                            1951
                                                            
                                                   [Page 88]
                                                            
                         RIBBENTROP
                              
Ribbentrop is indicted under all four Counts. He joined the
Nazi Party in 1932. By 1933 he had been made Foreign Policy
Adviser to Hitler, and in the same year the representative
of the Nazi Party on foreign policy. In 1934 he was
appointed Delegate for Disarmament Questions, and in 1935
Minister Plenipotentiary at Large, a capacity in which he
negotiated the Anglo-German Naval Agreement in 1935 and the
Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936. On 11th August, 1936, he was
appointed Ambassador to England. On 4th February, 1938, he
succeeded Von Neurath as Reichsminister for Foreign Affairs
as part of the general reshuffle which accompanied the
dismissal of Von Fritsch and Von Blomberg.

Crimes against Peace

Ribbentrop was not present at the Hoszbach Conference held
on 5th November, 1937, but on 2nd January, 1938, while still
Ambassador to England, he sent a memorandum to Hitler
indicating his opinion that a change in the status quo in
the East in the German sense could only be carried out by
force and suggesting methods to prevent England and France
from intervening in a European war fought to bring about
such a change. When Ribbentrop became Foreign Minister
Hitler told him that Germany still had four problems to
solve, Austria, Sudetenland, Memel, and Danzig, and
mentioned the possibility of "some sort of a show-down" or
"military settlement" for their solution.

On 12th February, 1938, Ribbentrop attended the conference
between Hitler and Schuschnigg at which Hitler, by threats
of invasion, forced Schuschnigg to grant a series of
concessions designed to strengthen the Nazis in Austria,
including the appointment of Seyss-Inquart as Minister of
Security and Interior, with control over the police.
Ribbentrop was in London when the occupation of Austria was
actually carried out and, on the basis of information
supplied him by Goering, informed the British Government
that Germany had not presented Austria with an ultimatum,
but had intervened in Austria only to prevent civil war. On
13th March, 1938, Ribbentrop signed the law incorporating
Austria into the German Reich.

Ribbentrop participated in the aggressive plans against
Czechoslovakia. Beginning in March 1938, he was in close
touch with the Sudeten German Party and gave them
instructions which had the effect of keeping the Sudeten
German question a live issue which might serve as an excuse
for the attack which Germany was planning against
Czechoslovakia. In August 1938 he participated in a
conference for the purpose of obtaining Hungarian support in
the event of a war with Czechoslovakia. After the Munich
Pact he continued to bring diplomatic pressure with the
object of occupying the remainder of Czechoslovakia. He was
instrumental in inducing the Slovaks to proclaim their
independence. He was present at the conference of 14th-15th
March,

                                                   [Page 89]
                                                            
1939, at which Hitler, by threats of invasion, compelled
President Hacha to consent to the German occupation of
Czechoslovakia. After the German troops had marched in,
Ribbentrop signed the law establishing a protectorate over
Bohemia and Moravia.

Ribbentrop played a particularly significant role in the
diplomatic activity which led up to the attack on Poland. He
participated in a conference held on 12th August, 1939, for
the purpose of obtaining Italian support if the attack
should lead to a general European war. Ribbentrop discussed
the German demands with respect to Danzig and the Polish
Corridor with the British Ambassador in the period from 25th
August to 30th August, 1939, when he knew that the German
plans to attack Poland had merely been temporarily postponed
in an attempt to induce the British to abandon their
guarantee to the Poles. The way in which he carried out
these discussions makes it clear that he did not enter them
in good faith in an attempt to reach a settlement of the
difficulties between Germany and Poland.

Ribbentrop was advised in advance of the attack on Norway
and Denmark and of the attack on the Low Countries, and
prepared the official Foreign Office memoranda attempting to
justify these aggressive actions.

Ribbentrop attended the conference on 20th January, 1941, at
which Hitler and Mussolini discussed the proposed attack on
Greece, and the conference in January 1941, at which Hitler
obtained from Antonescu permission for German troops to go
through Rumania for this attack. On 25th March, 1941, when
Yugoslavia adhered to the Axis Tri-partite Pact, Ribbentrop
had assured Yugoslavia that Germany would respect its
sovereignty and territorial integrity. On 27th March, 1941,
he attended the meeting, held after the coup d'etat in
Yugoslavia, at which plans were made to carry out Hitler's
announced intention to destroy Yugoslavia.

Ribbentrop attended a conference in May 1941 with Hitler and
Antonescu relating to Rumanian participation in the attack
on the USSR He also consulted with Rosenberg in the
preliminary planning for the political exploitation of
Soviet territories and in July 1941, after the outbreak of
war, urged Japan to attack the Soviet Union.

War crimes and Crimes against humanity

Ribbentrop participated in a meeting of 6th June, 1944, at
which it was agreed to start a program under which Allied
aviators carrying out machine gun attacks on the civilian
population should be lynched. In December, 1944, Ribbentrop
was informed of the plans to murder one of the French
generals held as a prisoner of war and directed his
subordinates to see that the details were worked out in such
a way as to prevent its detection by the protecting powers.
Ribbentrop is also responsible for War crimes and Crimes
against humanity because of his activities with respect to
occupied countries and Axis satellites. The top German
official in both Denmark and Vichy France was a Foreign
Office representative, and Ribbentrop is therefore
responsible for the general economic and political policies
put into effect in the occupation of those countries. He
urged the Italians to adopt a ruthless occupation policy in
Yugoslavia and Greece.

He played an important part in Hitler's "final solution" of
the Jewish question. In September, 1942 he ordered the
German diplomatic representatives accredited to various Axis
satellites to hasten the deportation of Jews to the East. In
June, 1942 the German Ambassador to Vichy requested Laval to
turn over 50,000 Jews for deportation to the East. On 25th
February, 1943, Ribbentrop protested to Mussolini against
Italian slowness in deporting Jews from the Italian
occupation zone of France. On 17th April, 1943, he took part
in a conference between Hitler and Horthy

                                                   [Page 90]
                                                            
on the deportation of Jews from Hungary and informed Horthy
that the "Jews must either be exterminated or taken to
concentration camps." At the same conference Hitler had
likened the Jews to "tuberculosis bacilli" and said if they
did not work they were to be shot.

Ribbentrop's defense to the charges made against him is that
Hitler made all the important decisions and that he was such
a great admirer and faithful follower of Hitler that he
never questioned Hitler's repeated assertions that he wanted
peace or the truth of the reasons that Hitler gave in
explaining aggressive action. The Tribunal does not consider
this explanation to be true. Ribbentrop participated in all
of the Nazi aggressions from the occupation of Austria to
the invasion of the Soviet Union. Although he was personally
concerned with the diplomatic rather than the military
aspect of these actions, his diplomatic efforts were so
closely connected with war that he could not have remained
unaware of the aggressive nature of Hitler's actions. In the
administration of territories over which Germany acquired
control by illegal invasion Ribbentrop also assisted in
carrying out criminal policies, particularly those involving
the extermination of the Jews. There is abundant evidence,
moreover, that Ribbentrop was in complete sympathy with all
the main tenets of the National Socialist creed and that his
collaboration with Hitler and with other defendants in the
commission of Crimes against Peace, War crimes, and Crimes
against Humanity was whole-hearted. It was because Hitler s
policy and plans coincided with his own ideas that
Ribbentrop served him so willingly to the end.

Conclusion: The Tribunal finds that Ribbentrop is guilty on
all four Counts.

M. DE VABRES:

[Transcription note: See j-defendants-keitel]

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